the william tell overture
by thefireplanet
Summary: Kíli nocks his bow and points it at his brother.
1. prelude, dawn

**a/n: **so, not to be long-winded: i saw a prompt on the LJ hobbit-kink page but i have no livejournal account and don't know how these things work so if the prompter by chance finds this—thanks for the wonderful idea! and hope you like it? (i'll probably post the original prompt with the last entry, to not spoil things.)

anyway, first time in this world, but i love these characters (who doesn't?)

takes place before _The Hobbit_, in the boys' youth. planning on four parts.

i'm trying to get back in the swing of writing everyday (it's really hard in college) and i figure FF is a good practice tool.

if you read it please, please, please review. they keep me going.

thanks :)

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**i. prelude, _dawn_**

"Uncle'll be wondering where we are."

"Aye."

"Do you think he'll come looking for us?"

"In the morning, maybe."

"_Shuddup, maggots_!"

Kíli glares at the prison guard through the fragments of his iron bars; the man is picking at the dirt under his nails with a poorly crafted knife, watching the specks cascade to the floor and then sniffing loudly. Kíli continues at a stubborn whisper, "Well, it could be worse."

He waits for an answer, and, when none comes, repeats, "It could be worse, couldn't it, Fee?" He's a jittery ball of nerves, his knees and elbows coming into contact with the wooden walls of his cell, a small, cramped thing built for narrower people than he. He wishes he could see his brother's face, but the cells are adjacent and the wood sturdy. After a long moment he hears, "Of course, Kíli."

Kíli readjusts his positions. There is a metal bucket in the corner of his prison, but other than that it is bare, and his feet are falling to pins and needles beneath him. He settles heavily against the bars in the far corner, so that if he strains he can just make out his brother's nose. There is a single oil lamp near the prison guard, sending flickering shadow fingers outward, making his gloom worse. He begins picking at a stray thread on his coat.

"I'm sorry, you know," he tells his belt.

Fíli sighs, heavily, sounding world-weary and tired. "I know."

"Are you angry at me?" Kíli's voice is small. He can count on one hand the number of times his brother has been truly mad at him.

Very abruptly: "No."

"You _are_ mad at me." His nail digs up and under the loose thread, a royal blue, and he rips it ferociously. He recognizes somewhere in the back of his mind that he sounds like a twenty-year-old dwarfling, petulant and stubborn, but his mouth keeps moving of its own accord. "How was I supposed to know that not bowing to the mayor was a punishable offense? We don't bow to anyone back home!"

"We _aren't_ back home, Kíli—you seem to be forgetting that." His brother lowers his voice. "We aren't among those who know who we are. We're _nobodies_ to these people. We can't afford to ignore their customs. Didn't Uncle tell you that before he left? Didn't Mother?" Fíli affects a rather intimidating Thorin Oakenshield, his light tones tumbling dark and rough around the edges. "You cannot draw attention to yourself! Men are vain creatures who fear those who aren't like them."

Kíli wishes his brother could see his glare. "We're heirs of Durin. Why should we hide that? Why should I have bowed to that fat old man—"

"It's called _respect_."

"The mayor wasn't _respecting_ that human girl he knocked over," Kíli hisses, "or that man he pushed out of the way. The may doesn't deserve _respect_—"

"It's not our battle to fight," his brother snaps back, voice hard and merciless and too much like their uncle's for Kíli's liking, "so we cannot fight it. We look after our own. We're loyal to our own. Not to a village we're passing through."

"You sound just like him." Kíli doesn't mean it as a compliment and he can tell his brother knows this. "The world is a dark and horrible place and—"

"But it is. It's not all like Ered Luin. It's not like that at all. It's your first time seeing it—what would you know?" Fíli sounds bitter, and maybe it's just him overreacting, but suddenly Kíli sees twenty some-odd years of watching his brother's back as he left for weeks on end, chosen to work with his uncle because he was first born and first loved and—

Kíli doesn't say anything for a long beat, then bites out, very suddenly, "You're just jealous because Uncle no longer thinks I'm too young to work with him."

There is a pregnant pause, and then a rather incredulous, "_What_? Mahal, Kíli, what world does that make sense in—"

"You're no longer the center of attention. _That's_ why you're angry at me right now. You're afraid I'll upstage you." Kíli rubs a fist down his face. "Don't worry. I will."

"I'm angry with you because this could have all been avoided through one simple gesture—and now we're stuck in jail about to be sentenced to who knows what because of your _damned pride_!"

"At least I _have_ pride in my lineage!"

"At least _I_ have some brains!"

"At least I—"

"If you two dwarves don't shuddup I will _gut you _and hang you by your intestines at the gallows tomorrow morning," the prison guard growls, and Kíli is startled away from where he had been inching angrily towards the bars, the echo of his and Fíli's argument dying on the stagnant air. There is a rustling from the cell over, and then silence.

Kill shoves himself into the far corner by the bucket and curls up around his knees. He falls asleep fitfully, and to strange dreams, one ear open for his brother's voice to patch things over like he always does, to say _Kee, let's not fight, I hate it when we fight_—

It never comes.


	2. storm

**a/n:** well this took on a life of its own. thank you for all the wonderful reviews/faves/alerts! you guys rock.

please read and review :)

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**ii. _storm_**

"I'm not supposed to be in here! My family—they's was—it was only some food! Did you expect me to watch them _starve_?!" The man roars, slamming his body against the iron bars, groping for the prison guard who is already sauntering away, knife between his teeth. Kíli feels almost-sick, but knows he can't afford to lose the precious little food he's managed to eat—instead he curls sideways, wrapped around the bucket and facing the corner. The wood is dark and grained. Like mountain stone, if he squints and crosses his eyes. He counts for the thousandth time the lines running through the wood grain in a vain attempt to try and ignore the whimpering, the pleading, the praying coming from the now-full cells surrounding him.

The jail has become cramped and tired and small with an influx of prisoners, smelling of piss and rotten ale.

And still, in the three—four? (time blurs)—days that they've sat, and taken the hard tack, and water, and pissed into corners, and watched the prison fill up in twos and threes—still, in all that time, Kíli has not spoken to his brother, the wall between them feeling as great a thing as if someone had replaced it with the Blue Mountains.

His world is off its axis, and not just because he's listening to ten humans complaining about life in a cell meant for true criminals in a town he can't even remember the name to. Was Uncle looking for them? Was his mother worried sick? (Knowing Dís, actually, she was probably organizing the search party, strapping an axe to her back to lead it herself.) He opens his mouth to relay the strange, frightening-yet-funny-image of his mother he has, storming into the place and ripping the guard to pieces, but his voice dies in his throat.

He would not talk first.

He would not apologize.

He curls more stubbornly around the foul smelling bucket instead.

"That noise won't do you any good."

Kíli starts at the sound of his brother's voice.

"Ah, and the silent one speaks!" A man several cells down with a gleam in his eyes leers. Kíli catches it as he straightens, twisting around and pushing himself up to his knees. "Didn't know you could, Master Dwarf. I was quite under the impression you two were mutes. Well, maybe your companion is." The human breaks off into derisive laughter. Kíli, furious, opens his mouth to show him just how much of a _not_-mute he is, but Fíli's too quick—

"That noise won't do you any good," he repeats, and Kíli realizes his brother must be directing his words towards the crying man, the one just brought in. The human's face is blotched and bloodied, one eye nearly swollen shut. "You must be strong, for your family."

Kíli glares sideways, hoping to send his anger through the wall, because he could feel his brother resolutely ignoring him.

"You don't know what happens in here," the man whispers, slumping defeated to the ground, "the games they make you play."

"You really going to take the advice of a _dwarf_?" The leering man snorts, speaking over his brethren. He has the look of the traveling men who sometimes pause by Ered Luin, harking wares that clearly aren't theirs to hark. "They know nothing of our customs."

"Please," Kíli mutters under his breath, rolling his eyes.

"And you know nothing of ours," Fíli snaps. Kíli presses up against the wall separating them, imagining his brother on the other side. "So kindly keep your words to yourself, _Master_ Human."

"I oughta skin you alive, you midget," the man hisses, and oh, Kíli cannot keep his mouth shut at this—

"Midget? Really? As if we haven't heard _that_ one before."

He feels a sharp thump through the wall, like an elbow smashing against it, and he grins at the knee-jerk reaction, even if it wasn't the one he wanted. The man's glare deepens, mouth working silently, before he settles on, "So you can speak. Pity. You were better when broken."

"Watch your words," Fíli growls, and Kíli feels happy for the first time in days, even though he's half-starved and reduced to bickering with a thieving human whose bark was worse than his bite. After a pause Fíli continues, threatening edge gone, "What did you mean, then? The 'games they make you play'?"

The second man snorts. The first, having wiped his face repeatedly on the sleeve of his shirt, looks worse than before. He opens his mouth to explain, and Kíli frowns, except then the second breaks in, abruptly and with authority, "Let them find out themselves."

And that is that.

Silence falls.

Kíli listens to the men settling down; outside he imagines the sun is setting. He misses the sky, fiercely, and fresh air. He waits impatiently in the growing gloom for his brother to say something to him, pressed as he is against the wall, but nothing greets him except the tortured breathing of a sick man several cells down.

_Fine_ then, see if he cared—

_Clank, clank, clank_.

Kíli starts out of his slump. At the far end of the cell block the prison guard is rattling his way down the cages, using the sharp point of his knife to slap the bars (and when did he leave off nail-picking for prisoner-bothering?). The guard almost nicks his nose with the side of his blade as he passes, turning sharply at the end and coming up the row across, drawing blood from the arm of the man with the black-eye who does not move away in time. When he's done the guard stands at the head of them all, cross-cut through the bars, and grins, several teeth missing or rotten.

"End of the week, boys, and you know what that means." He claps. In the shadow of the flickering lamp his face goes dark. "The mayor requires his entertainment. What do you think he's come up with this time, eh?"

In the heartbeat that follows Kíli feels the blood drain from his face, and he may be an heir to the throne of Erebor, but what good did that title do him in this world of too-big men? He licks his lips, swallows his pride, dares a whisper. "Fíli, what's going on?"

The door behind the prison guard opens, revealing a thin-swatch of growing night, letting in a bitterly cold breeze and a string of men, decked in blood-red livery and poorly crafted armor. They stop at the first cell, pulling it open and binding the hands of the man inside. They blindfold him next, and one of the guards leads him out of the jail, into the quiet of outside. Kíli repeats, a little louder, "Fee? What's—"

"I don't know." His brother's words are clipped. In the pause that follows another cell creaks open. Then: "Keep your head low, Kee."

It's not the comfort he's looking for. His heart begins beating fast as the towering men turn towards his cell. He's an heir of Durin, of that line, he had to be strong, had to—

The door opens, swinging out on rusted hinges, and then the men are there, dragging him up from his lean against the wall with vice-like grips on his upper arms, pulling his hands behind him with such force he thinks his arms might break and binding them with rope. He struggles, despite advice otherwise, and kicks one in the knee. The world is a blur of shouting and struggling and his brother's voice ("Leave him alone!") until they clap him hard on the side of the head and his vision spouts blue-black-green around the edges.

"I'll gut you, next time," one of the men says, low and in his face. Then, louder, "Blind him."

They slip the coarse black material over his eyes, shrouding his world in darkness and shadow, and he can only hope, as they march him out into the chill, shockingly fresh air, that Fíli is following close behind.

* * *

The noise, first: a great crowd, milling and useless.

The smell, next: meat, mead, sweat.

The light, after, as his captors pull the fabric from his eyes: the flickering of torches. Under this glow is a half-ring of people facing him, laughing and talking.

He blinks, rapidly.

It's a hall, the same dark wood as his cell had been. The walls are draped in heavy red fabrics that absorb the weak light given off by the torches. On a dais at the far end of the room, a little to his right, is a table, laid with quail and chicken and pork and tomatoes and pies and sweets; at the head of that table was the fat old man, girth pressing against the arms of his chair, that called himself mayor.

Kíli struggles forward, but his hands are still bound, and he almost staggers off-balance to the ground. The space before him is clear, all the way to a long wall, which was blank and empty, save for the marred wood peppered with small cuts. Large chunks had been torn from it, and it looked to be charred in some places. Standing directly before him, perhaps seventy-feet away, was the thief-man, still blindfolded but recognizable by the slump of his shoulders.

Kíli's eyes immediately search for his brother.

Fíli is propped to the left of the thief-man. Guards roughly remove his blindfold, catching on the clasp of one of his braids so that it unravels. Kíli sighs in relief as he meets familiar blue eyes. Fíli's flicker downward, almost imperceptibly. Kíli follows his gaze.

By his feet is a bow and a single arrow. Someone had had the decency to give him the smallest of the set, but it was still large, clunky, and hastily made. He twists his head sideways. Directly to his left, in front of Fíli, is the man with the black-eye, the man who had been crying as he had entered prison.

Kíli's stomach does a dead little flop. Nerves, frayed to breaking, begin working overtime once again.

Somebody rings a bell.

Silence settles over the hall, except for the muted chewing of the mayor, who smacks his lips once before hunkering to his feet with much strain. Kíli grimaces as the human wipes his mouth with one finger. "Ladies and gentlemen, welcome, welcome."

Kíli tries to loosen the rope around his wrists, but it remains tight and fast. He meets Fíli's eyes again. His brother shakes his head.

Kíli frowns.

Fíli sends him a pointed look.

Kíli rolls his eyes.

"Here we have before you the low-life scum caught in the bowels of my city for breaking our good law." The mayor smiles. "So we offer them now a chance to win back their freedom."

There is a general uproar at this.

"Last week we sent them all fighting to the death, the victor being the one who stood at the end of the bloodshed, but this week," the mayor pauses, firmly rooted to the dais, swaying back and forth, to suck a seed out from between his teeth, "I am feeling that more finesse is required."

Kíli feels his eyes widening. He tries to catch his brother's gaze, but Fíli is looking at the mayor in disgust. He returns his own to the bow at his feet, mind working a mile a minute to try and come up with what sort of challenge could be placed before them, but the only thing he can seem to think of is how his uncle had once told him archery was an elvish practice of little use.

Think, think, think, _think_—

"If one man can shoot an apple clean off his partner's head," the mayor pauses once more to lick his finger, "then both their freedom is won."

For a brief, heady moment he is giddy with relief, because his aim was good and his skill better, but then he realizes with a sickening lurch that his brother was not standing as a partner before him, but before the crying man, who most likely had only ever touched a plow, and no, not Fíli, he would have to jump before the arrow, because they _would not take his brother_—

"And we have special guests among us, today." The mayor's voice drops to a low murmur, and Kíli's thoughts rabbit forward and back, because did the human know? Who they were? Who he had kept in his cells? Did he know that if any harm befell either of them their uncle would be on his head faster than you could say _Mahal, save us_?

"Dwarves, from—well, I know not where," the mayor laughs, "but their homes are mostly ash, anyway."

Kíli growls, stepping forward, brows drawn down in an angry slash.

He wants to gut the man.

"It's unfair, then!" A woman shouts from the crowd. "The dwarf, having to shoot a human, the human a dwarf!"

The mayor looks like he is about to skin the heckler, until others join in agreement, and then he says, very seriously, hands out for quiet, "But let it not be said I am not _fair_. Place the dwarves together!" He claps his hands and Fíli is shuffled sideways. Kíli breathes sharply through his nose in relief. "That should give the small masters a fighting chance, eh?" He chortles, as if it was his own idea, and Kíli bites his tongue so hard it bleeds. The crowd roars its approval. The bell is rung. The mayor says, "Unbind the first."

Kíli turns to watch as the ropes are cut from the crying man's wrists. A guard pushes the human down towards the bow, so that the man cuts the palm of his hand on the arrow before scrabbling to his feet. Across and away, the thief-man bites his lip nervously as another guard sets atop his head a shiny, red apple. It totters sideways before balancing precariously on its side.

The crying man looks at the bow and arrow for a long moment, and then shakes his head with a cry. "I canna do it!"

"Then, Master, you will both be jailed."

"Do it, you sod!" The thief-man roars.

The arrow is placed with no skill, and the string is drawn back with shaking hands, sending the tip of metal swerving unreliably in mid-air. Kíli glances to his brother, and Fíli mouths, _Look at me_.

But he can't. His gaze is drawn away as the crying man, shouting, lets loose the arrow with more power than accuracy. It hurtles true, guided by some invisible thread, and with a dull _schmack_—

Wedges itself between the eyes of the man at the far end of the room.

Kíli's mouth opens as the blood begins trailing down the arrow's tip, following the river-path of the man's nose and open mouth. He flaps heavily to the ground, face-first, crack of bone, shatter of wood; the apple rolls several feet away, landing by Fíli's boot; and the crowd cheers and cheers; and through it all he can hear his brother, "Look at me! Kíli, look at me!"; and the man to his left wails like a spirit, animalistic and horrible, the sound raising every hair on the back of Kíli's neck as he collapses to the floor, scrubbing at his hands, flinging the bow to one side. He is dragged from the room, screaming, and all Kíli can think is—

_That was almost my brother, there with the blood. _

"Jailed now for murder. What a pity." The mayor bites the skin off a chicken leg, settling back into his seat, as the crowd quiets. The man's wails are heard for a long time, echoing into darkness.

Kíli feels more awake than he has in days. He feels anger. He blinks and the dead man is imprinted on the back of his eyelids. He blinks again and Fíli replaces him.

"Ah! Now for the dwarves. Good, good." Pause, to lick his lips. "You know, the idea of an archer dwarf amuses me. This shall end badly, all way round."

The ropes come off his hands, but Kíli drops to the ground before the guard can kick him. The bow fits easily into the curve of his palm. He straightens, eyeing the arrow down the shaft, noting the ways the wood bent, the way it warped slightly around the middle. When he looks up the apple—now dyed a darker, uglier shade—is already settled on top of his brother's head.

Fíli's eyes are steady, his posture relaxed. There is a half-grin on his face. Kíli returns it with a wider smile of his own. The world tunnels down to a point, anger burning hot in his gut as he stands. The crowd becomes impatient. A few begin to yell.

He inhales.

Exhales.

Kíli nocks his bow and points it at his brother.


	3. ranz des vaches

**a/n:** thank you all so much for the reviews/faves/alerts! each one makes my day. as to the story, hope it is holding up alright. last part is next.

babies. sigh. (cuties.)

please read and review :)

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**iii. _ranz des vaches_**

"No. I'll have the hammer, two yards of the leather, and the iron ore for fifteen silver pieces."

"You think I'll let such fine materials leave my care for such a paltry sum? Master Dwarf—"

"The hammer will break after two uses, if I'm careful. Then I'll have to use it for scrap. The leather is rough and old, clearly someone's jerkin. Was the owner dead before or after you took it? As for the ore, I could certainly mine better quality, but why bother with quality when teaching beginners?"

"I—I—"

Fíli watched the large human look between his uncle—staunch and frowning, arms crossed—and the wares lined up between them on the ground, and tried to feign interest. He kept lilting sideways, attempting to see around the tall, wide human to the cart behind, which had whirligigs and thingamabobs and a _real_ carving of a dragon, which his uncle had yelled at him for marveling. He sniffed, completely unexcited by the prospect of forging something out of that horrible, ugly looking pile of rock.

"_Fee_!"

Fíli started, feeling a familiar hand grab at the end of his tunic. Out of the corner of his eye he saw his uncle shoot him a warning look—_get your brother under control_—and he immediately sighed out of the corner of his mouth, "Not now, Kíli."

"Fee, Fee, look—"

He felt his tunic slam against his knee. His uncle said, through clenched teeth, "Fifteen silver pieces."

"I won't settle for less than two gold pieces."

"_Fíli!_"

"_What_?" He hissed, looking down at last. His brother was there, the two tiny braids Fíli had placed in his hair that morning already in danger of falling out as he thrust out his hands, from which hung a slightly limp string, attached to a bow—twice Kíli's size—dragging on the floor.

"I want this," he said resolutely.

"It's a bow," Fíli whispered back, as if that should be enough reason to deter him.

"I want this," Kíli repeated, letting go with one hand to put his thumb in his mouth, which Fíli slapped away almost immediately.

"It's too big for you."

"'s not."

"Is too."

"'s _not_!"

Fíli bit the lower part of his lip, not wanting to tell his brother that he would _never_ be tall enough to use it, and instead whispered, "Why do you want a bow? Wouldn't you rather I make you an axe? I can make you an axe."

"No. I saw—" Kíli paused, frowning, trying to get a better grip on the weapon, causing the bottom to snap warily, "—I saw a 'man hit far away stuff with this."

"Because it's a range weapon." Fíli scrunched up his face, remembering the man who had come through last month regaling the younger dwarves with his archery skill by splitting an apple sitting on the handle of an axe while standing seventy-feet away.

"'man said s'good for procting people."

"For protecting people?"

"Yeah. I proct you, Fee." Kíli cracked a gap-toothed grin and Fíli sighed, knowing he was doomed.

"Two gold coins."

"Fifteen silver pieces."

"Two—"

Fíli turned back to the bartering and said very suddenly, "Do you have a smaller bow?"

"What?" The merchant blinked.

"_What_." His uncle growled.

"Do you have a smaller bow?" Fíli repeated, feeling Kíli latch one arm around his knee, thumb going firmly in his mouth. The tip of the bow brushed his boot. "One made for children?"

"Fíli, what are you—" Thorin's voice was sharp and very low, but the merchant, seeing an opportunity, seized it gladly.

"Why, _yes_, Master Dwarf, I do have a right fine bow fitting your description. Let me fetch it now, and take that one off your hands." The merchant smiled in what Fíli supposed was to be a friendly sort of manner, but it stretched his bulbous face to bursting and caused Kíli to retreat behind his tunic with a cry.

"Give him the bow, Kee." Fíli placed his hand on his brother's head. "Come on."

Kíli's one hand reluctantly let go of his prize; Fíli slapped the other one out of his mouth absentmindedly as the merchant hurried back to the cart.

"What are you doing?" Thorin's frown was the size of the mountain behind them.

"Kíli wants to learn archery," Fíli said very slowly, daring to meet his uncle's less-than-pleased gaze. He felt his brother bury his face into his leg.

"A damnable practice, fit for only _elves_," Thorin growled, one hand reaching up to rub his temple. "You let your brother get away with too much, Fíli, you cannot—"

"I think it's a good idea, though!"

"I 'tect Fee with it, Uncle," Kíli said loudly into his leg.

Thorin opened his mouth slowly, looking torn, like he did not know whether to reprimand Kíli or rail against the elves, but he had not the time for either, as at that moment the merchant came shuffling back, holding a small bow—a perfect replica of the one so recently given up. Nothing but a toy, really. "Will this do?"

"No—" Thorin began, but Fíli cut him off very quickly. "One gold piece for the lot."

"You drive a hard bargain, little dwarfling," the merchant examined the wood of the weapon in his hand but said, very quickly and immediately after, "but I accept."

Thorin crossed his arms over his chest in the pause that followed, as Fíli looked at the bow eagerly. The merchant eyed them expectantly. After several long, uncomfortable moments his uncle said, at last, "Well, where is your gold piece?"

Fíli started, glancing helplessly to the side. "What?"

"You will be working this off in the forges." Thorin sent him a pointed, piercing look, pulling a gold coin from the pouch at his waist and handing it to the merchant, who in turn gave him the bow, which Thorin, nose pointed up in disdain, gave to Fíli. "Four days a week, after your weapons training. Perhaps it will teach you to respect the decisions of your elders."

"Yes, Uncle."

"The rest is yours, Master Dwarf. Pleasure doing business." The merchant pocketed his fee, tipping his head, and trundled back off towards the cart with a whistle. Kíli detached himself from his brother's leg long enough to watch him go. Fíli held the bow down around his eyes.

"There. This one's better. More your size."

"_Tank you_!" Kíli smiled so wide he split his face, and Fíli returned it, feeling something light and warm settle in his chest.

"Help me carry this back," his uncle said grimly, cutting in and bending down before the hammer and leather. "Take the ore."

Fíli untangled himself from his brother. "Alright."

"You two are entirely too dependent upon each other," Thorin said, but whether he meant for it to be heard or not, Fíli couldn't tell. He hoisted the iron ore, arms straining, and said, "I know what I want to make first, Uncle."

"Oh?"

"Hair clasps! For me and Kee."

Thorin sighed.

Fíli watched Kíli bound ahead, bowstring snapping back to deliver swift death to invisible enemies.

Ready—

Aim—


	4. finale, march of the swiss soldiers

**a/n: **so like woah, i wish this was less angsty. um.

just wanted to thank everyone for the reviews/alerts/faves and for tagging along for the ride! special thanks also to **starkling**, who let me play around with an awesome prompt.

anywho. please read and review :)

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**iv. finale, _march of the swiss soldiers_**

The thing he's learned over the years—and, as is brother would tell him, that he learned _anything_ was a rare sort of feat—is never to hesitate. Never to pause and calculate, with the bowstring taut and the arrow resting on the flat of your index finger, because the longer you sighted down that wooden shaft the more the target moved and swayed. The more you inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled, the more you began to count heartbeats, the more you began to become comfortable, easy, relaxed, the more the world shifted in and out of focus.

No, the trick was to shoot first, fast, and ask questions later.

—"Fire," Kíli whispers, and the arrow flies.

It crunches into the apple, force flinging it backward into the nicked and tattered wall behind, and Fíli doesn't even flinch as the arrow embeds itself into the wood. Two uneven pieces fall to either side of the quivering shaft, slapping to the floor with a sound like an avalanche in the silence that has followed the release of his bow string.

Kíli is staring intently at his brother's eyes, watching a smug grin grow on Fíli's face as he turns his blue-gaze upon the mayor.

There is no applause, only a stunned stillness. The crowd is clearly uncomfortable, not only with the quickness with which he shot but the apparent ease with which he managed the whole thing and the overriding, very-noticeable fact that he reached only about to their collective hips. Kíli finally rips his gaze from his brother and settles it on the mayor.

The man's mouth is hanging slightly open as he looks between the two dwarves, until he notices everyone staring and snaps it shut angrily, teeth clattering against a spare bone in his mouth, which he spits onto the plate before him. He picks up a tomato, ripe, juicy, small, about the size of an eye, and bites into it, red dribbling like blood down his chin.

"Well," the mayor manages at last, between mouthfuls, "that was certainly surprising."

Kíli turns back to his brother and their eyes meet at last, and suddenly Fíli is shaking his head, satisfied grin gone, replaced instead with the closest thing Kíli has seen to fear on his face tonight.

(See, but he shoots first and aims after.)

"Why, if I didn't know any better," the mayor continues, and Kíli drops to the ground in a roll, bones aching from tension and prison walls as he grapples blindly before him, hand closing around the shaft of the single arrow, which he brings up in a smooth, practiced motion to rest in the crook of the bow, pulls back—"I would have mistaken you for an _elf_—"

The word dies a bloody death in the human's throat, gurgling and struggling to the surface. The silence that follows is pierced by a single, high-pitched scream before anarchy reigns, every human springing to frenzied life, and all Kíli can think to say is:

"Damn. I missed."

The arrow is protruding from the man's eye, which had burst outward in an unrecognizable display of pale-red, like one of the human's firework displays. He slumps forward amid his gluttony, scattering the feast to the ground as the nearest guards spring forward to aid him. Kíli watches it all with a strange sort of apathy, noticing the little lings:

The dotting of bright red tomato juice on the mayor's chin; the way the fingers on his right hand twitch with the last breath of life; the way slamming into the table has driven the arrow further into the man's skull.

He blinks, pain blossoming swiftly and suddenly across his left shoulder, bringing him back to the bedlam of reality. He twists, but too slow—the blade is already reaching back to deliver the fatal blow across his neck, singing his funeral dirge, and he closes his eyes, and at least his brother should manage to get out in the confusion, because really, that's all that matters—

A familiar weight hits him low, driving into his stomach and pressing him to the floor so that the blade sails harmlessly over his head. Fíli's voice is a roar above the din, frightening in its intensity, wordless and sharp. Kíli shoves his brother off of him, hall kicking into bright color. He spring boards up, shoulder shrieking in protest as he brings the bow in a backhanded swing across the guard's knees, so hard the wood shatters. The human collapses awkwardly, and Kíli's reaching for his sword even as he delivers a solid kick to his chest. The blade cuts along his palms as he turns.

Fíli is struggling to his feet behind him, and out of the corner of his eye he sees other guards advancing, and this was going to turn into a bloodbath very, very quickly. "Here," he snaps, twisting his brother around and slashing the ropes around his wrists. He tries for humor but it falls flat: "How'd you manage that distance with no arms, eh?"

"What is _wrong_ with you?" Fíli's eyes are darting between his bleeding shoulder and the advancing guards and the stoic-bordering-lifeless look on his face. Kíli dodges the misjudged punch of another human, dragging his brother closer to the ground, and seethes, "Nothing." The door to the hall is up ahead. "Can you yell at me later?"

Fíli doesn't respond.

The two plunge into the twisting mass of bodies, all running in swarm towards the entrance and freedom and outside. Guards are shouting behind them, _get the dwarf, kill the dwarf_, but no one is listening, no one is concerned with anything but escape—and everything is so _large_, the stamping of stick-feet and the shrill shriek of human voices—Fíli's grip on his coat is vice-like, tighter than a lock, even as they are forced apart by the pressure of the crowd and his arm bends—and Kíli's shoulder is on fire, wet and soggy—and they are squeezed and stretched and pulled, hidden by human skirts and human feet, suffocating—

They fall, stumble, drop into sudden space. The air is fresh, biting its way up his nose and burning down his lungs, so that he takes huge, quick gulps to rid himself of the stench of blood and meat and sweat. The humans are scattering on either side, like ants, and Fíli is immediately at his elbow and Kíli, like nothing just happened, grabs his arm and drags him into the shadows, shouting, "Run!"

Shoot first.

Ask questions later.

* * *

They run until his breath is a knife scratching up his throat. He feels he left his lungs somewhere back by the fork in the road, trying to catch up with the rest of him. The forest is very green after the dark brown of the town, cluttered with pine trees whose trunks are as thick around as he is, and he leans sideways against one now, face red, trying to figure out if he can move his fingers. He manages the twitch of one, barely, and slow-moving, but then pain shoots up his arm and he gives up with a frustrated cough. When he places his good hand along the top of the cut he feels nothing, just a numb sort of cold that stings if he presses too hard. There is a lot of blood as he pulls his probing fingers away.

When he blinks he sees the dead man wearing Fíli's face and the mayor's eye, exploding out in a fire-burst.

He should feel guilt, for killing the man, but he didn't—doesn't—just a cold-seated, ice-hard fury that is gathered in the pit of his stomach. He had shot, and now the questions were pouring in, the dam breaking, the what-ifs taking root and sprouting like mad trees.

What if his brother had not switched places with the human? (First and foremost.)

What if he had not shot the mayor? (Second.)

What if he had missed? (Third.)

(Each with an outcome worse than the last.)

"Durin's beard," he curses, rubbing his good hand vigorously down his face, covering it with blood and grime, and when he turns, cowed and scared, feeling sick, towards his brother, he starts, for Fíli, breath ripping violently from his mouth, is pacing in exact imitation of Thorin, demanding and leader-like and scary as an orc pack. Kíli turns his attention back to his shoulder, trying to massage feeling into his hand, which is numb and detached, like it belongs to someone already dead.

Humans could be as bad as orcs, is what he tells himself; the mayor would have killed Fíli, is how he justifies it.

He is a child again, having just shot down his first goblin, feeling guilty and sick at the blood coating his arrow and arms and hands. His uncle pulls him aside, places gentle hands on his shaking shoulders, and asks, "_Would you act the same, if given the chance_?" (And of course he would, no hesitation, because Fíli had been in danger, the goblin had been rearing for him, so yes, he would take the sick and guilt if it meant he could save his brother.)

This time, it really isn't any different.

_Would you act the same_?

Yes.

Always.

"What were you thinking?" Kíli starts at the sound of his brother's voice, leaking rage and worry. He scratches the thin of his ruined tunic—torn and scraped and bloodied—against the bark of the tree, trying to rub feeling back into his injured arm, and shrugs, not meeting his brother's eyes. "Nothing."

"That much is _obvious_." Fíli kicks a pinecone with such force it sails several feet through the air, cracking like bone against a low branch. "_Clearly_."

"He was a bastard," Kíli says, rather unconvincingly. "He was making those people—do horrible things and—"

"Give me the real reason why you did it," Fíli growls, whipping sharply towards him, and _damn his brother for being able to read him like an open book_, "or have you become a liar as well as a murderer, now?"

It's a low blow. Fíli seems to realize this as soon as it leaves his mouth, for he shirks angrily to one side. Kíli flinches, returning to scratching his boots along the forest of pine needles beneath him. He wants to sleep. "It was nothing. Just leave it alone, alright?" He bites out the last, and so preoccupied is he with the movement of twigs that, though he registers his brother's footsteps, it's not until _after_ Fíli has him by the collar and is swinging him into the trunk. His vision bursts and his shoulder flares.

"Do you have a death wish?" Fíli yells, and Kíli lets him, looking resolutely to the side, biting his tongue hard. "Do you _want_ to die? Is that it?"

"No," Kíli says stubbornly, thinking about all the times he's bested his brother in wrestling and knowing he could do it now, even _with_ his Mahal-cursed arm.

"Is that why you decided to kill him?" Fíli accentuates his words by shaking him. There is something wild, like fear, in his brother's eyes. "_Is it_?"

"No!"

"Do you place so little value in life that you would risk yours so—so—_stupidly_?"

Kíli snaps, the what-ifs spilling from his mouth. "I COULD HAVE KILLED YOU!" He screams, raw and broken around the edges, so that Fíli drops him almost immediately in surprise. Ego bruised, eyes hurting, he rubs his crumpled collar and tries to ease the shaking of his good hand. There is blood on Fíli's fingers, shining dully in the growing light of early-morning sunrise. He turns his gaze stolidly on his brother in the horrible, awful pause that follows, as his voice echoes to its death on the breeze, as the forest wakes up.

He's glaring, fiercely, daring his brother to say something more, daring him to ask for a clearer explanation, but Fíli doesn't, because he's Fíli, so he knows, of course he knows, that if something had happened to him Kíli would have clawed tooth and nail to follow, anywhere, knows that the fact that several somethings _almost_ happened to him because Kíli was too bloody proud and the mayor too bloody human has shaken him to the core, and so why let the man who would take him away from his brother live?

He closes his eyes. The picture of the dead man wearing Fíli's face greets him.

Suddenly, abruptly: "Sit down."

Kíli blinks.

"What?" He asks, short of breath and confused and still disoriented.

"Sit down," Fíli says again, and he sounds tired and sad and not nearly so angry. Kíli lets himself slide down the side of the pine, scattering leaves and needles on the ground as he settles with a wince. His brother kneels down in front of him, prodding the arm he has cradled to his chest. Fíli pulls, none too gently, at the fingers of his hand, examining the cut on his shoulder with a critical eye, and Kíli hisses.

"Grow up," his brother orders, settling back on the balls of his feet to rip a strip of cloth from his tunic.

"You first," Kíli counters, and something shifts.

"I knew you were going to do something stupid. I could see it in your eyes."

"Shoot first," he says, like a mantra, "ask questions later."

"And I thought," Fíli continues, ignoring him, "that's fine, he always does stupid things, and we're usually fine—we'll be fine. It's fine. But then I saw the blade coming for your head." His brother ties the bandage none-too-gently, snorting. "I think Uncle is right. We're too dependent on each other."

"So?" He pulls his arm away, defensive.

"So?" Fíli mimics with a sigh, checking his handiwork. "So, you would go, and I would follow. Always." His brother straightens, knees cracking, holding out his hand. Kíli takes it, an unspoken promise in the grip, not saying what doesn't need saying and instead complaining all the way to his feet. "Mind, I think the mayor deserved it. But don't tell anyone, or I'll be a wanted dwarf, too."

"Har, har." Kíli tries to move his fingers but can't. "I think it's infected."

"Most assuredly."

"You're a horrible medic."

"I can hit it, and make it feel better."

"Ass." Kíli frowns. Then: "Can we not tell Uncle?"

"That you saved me? Or that you, an heir of Durin, are now the most wanted dwarf within twenty miles of this place?"

"Both. We can say—we can say we got lost," Kíli finishes brightly, the world spinning as-close-to-normal as circumstances would now allow.

"For five days?"

"You _were_ always bad with directions."

"Aye—but you led us astray first."

"Fine," he concedes. Then: "Mother's probably worried sick."

"Mother is probably skinning Uncle alive."

"I'd like to see that." He pauses. "Fearsome dwarf-king cowed by sister!"

Fíli laughs. "Come on, then—I don't much fancy being here when the calvary comes. And we should find Uncle before Uncle finds the town."

"Fíli."

"Hm?"

"I—" Kíli frowns, chewing on his lip. "I can't—"

"Don't worry, little brother," Fíli brings him forward with one hand, kissing his forehead and stepping back with a devil-may-care grin. "Together, or not at all."

"Together, or not at all," Kíli repeats, like a prayer.

* * *

**v. _encore_**

_This is how they fall:_

_The first, a spear in his back and a sword to his side._

_The second, an arrow to his heart and a smile on his face. _


End file.
